


Souls Bared

by Lisa_Telramor



Category: D.N. Angel
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-01
Updated: 2016-06-01
Packaged: 2018-07-11 12:03:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7050103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lisa_Telramor/pseuds/Lisa_Telramor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Snippets of DNAngel only if characters had daemons</p>
            </blockquote>





	Souls Bared

When Satoshi looked at portraits of his ancestors, each and every one of them was painted alongside a bird. An egret, a sharp-beaked falcon, a tiny ruby throated humming bird, or, as one memorable portrait showed, an albino peacock with its tail spread in all its resplendent glory. His grandmother’s daemon had settled as woodpecker, and his mother’s had settled as a crane. Bird daemons, as everyone knew, were indicative of witches, people with power outside the ordinary. Naturally every Hikari had a bird daemon as if by some mark of pride. Everyone except Satoshi.

Gou, in her more cynical moments, joked that they had settled just to spite all the ancestors who’d taken pride in a bird daemon and the Hikari name. While Satoshi didn’t think it was possible to settle out of spite, he could admit to taking some small satisfaction that there was one more thing to differentiate him from the mistakes of his predecessors. Gou had settled as a small green lizard which suited them just fine. She tended to stick to his pockets or the cuffs of his shirt in public, all the better to leach warmth from his skin.

There would be no flying away from their problems. No comfort from a warm, soft body either, just pinpricks of her claws and the neutral slide of scales against his wrists. When accused of being cold or distant, they could only laugh; there was a reason they’d settled as a reptile after all.

*

Ayame preferred small forms. The easier she could go unnoticed the better. Takeshi joked that she’d settle as a mouse and no one would be surprised even as his Yuzuki took the chance to change into something big or brightly colored. One of the benefits of Takeshi as a friend was that he attracted attention like breathing so that when Daisuke ended up with people staring from one of his fumbles, Takeshi could swoop in and redirect it.

That was school though, and home was a different story. Home was pit traps that could drag an unwary Daisuke and Ayame down the equivalent of an elevator shaft or lasers or crocodiles waiting to rip their limbs off.

“Niwa settle as birds for a reason, Daisuke,” she said over and over. Like the advantage of flight meant anything when they couldn’t be more than a few feet apart at a time. Daisuke would take Ayame curled up in his pocket or clinging to his shirt collar over a fluttering bird that he might accidentally knock out of the air on instinct, years of peripheral vision and reaction time training leaving him with the reflex of deflect or dodge first, question later. At almost fourteen, they hadn’t settled yet, but as each week passed, it felt like more and more of the people around them were settling.

Like Risa. They’d both spaced out during class watching Risa and her swan daemon, Ginko, one too many times.

Settling was a rite of passage that they looked forward to and dreaded at the same time.

“Takeshi is probably right,” Ayame murmured from Daisuke’s front pocket. “I’ll end up a mouse or a cricket.”

“There wouldn’t be anything wrong with that,” Daisuke said. He liked the tickle of her claws and the soft brush of her fur as a mouse and had never minded when she took insect forms. “Mikoto settled as a rabbit.” They didn’t remember their dad’s daemon well, but she had been soft and warm and they couldn’t remember her ever nudging him to “just try being a sparrow, that’s still small right?”

“Is it weird that I don’t want to settle?” Ayame asked.

Was it weird not to want to grow up? Daisuke wasn’t sure, but they both knew that they weren’t the best judges when it came to normal. Between their upbringing and having Takeshi for a best friend, they’d be hard pressed to say what sort of answer most people their age would have.

“Yuzuki settled,” Ayame said. And they both knew that Takeshi wasn’t really any more mature than Daisuke was.

Daisuke sighed.  “No one ever knows when they’ll settle.”

“I’ll miss changing.” She crawled free of his pocket and turned into a dog, just because she could and because hugs worked so much better when you could lean bodily against each other.

“What do you want to be?” Daisuke asked. If they had the choice…well, some people said you could influence it.

“Something big,” Ayame said, surprising him.

He pulled away. “But you’re always small.”

She grinned, dog tongue lolling out the side of her mouth. “But if I’m big maybe Mom won’t be able to use as many traps.”

Daisuke groaned. “No. No, Mom would just make it so you had to learn how to work around it.”

Ayame shrugged and turned small again, a snake this time, curling lightly around his wrist. “It was worth a thought.”

Of course when they settled, there wasn’t a choice at all. The pain of rejection and the shock of gaining Dark left them both reeling. It was only later that they realized she got stuck as a bird after all.

*

Riku’s daemon is a goat and it never stops being annoying how people side eye her about it. Like they’re weird for being a goat instead of a swan like Risa or a cat or squirrel or dog or mouse like her other classmates have. Riku would tell them to go jump in a lake, but Katsura has that covered, waving his stubby horns at anyone and their daemon who looks at them the wrong way too often.

She _likes_ how he settled. He can keep up when she runs and hop nimbly up anything she tries to climb and his sense of humor just goes so well with a goat face. Honestly, they got the better deal. Risa’s Ginko is slow and unwieldy. He might look pretty, but that impression didn’t last when he tried to walk. That was probably why Risa carried him everywhere. Preserving their good looks.

Riku wished whoever Risa fell for luck because if they looked at Ginko and thought that Risa was just some pretty girl, they’d obviously never come across an angry swan before. Swans could break your arm and peck out your eyes while you were down. At least with Katsura people knew what they were getting into.

*

Ayame went away when they were Dark. Daisuke couldn’t really explain where—she was with him in their head when Dark was in command, but it was always a little terrifying to not see her. Dark, on the other hand, didn’t’ have a daemon.

“You know I’m not human, Daisuke,” Dark said whenever this fact rose up to bother him again. “If it makes you feel better, think of Wiz as my daemon.”

That didn’t help though. Daisuke’d carried Wiz around and petted him and slept next to him for years. People didn’t do that with someone else’s daemon.

Inevitably that line of thought would lead him down another loop of negative thought. That was usually about the point Dark shut him out and got on with the heist properly. It was probably for the best that Daisuke couldn’t really think once Dark started taking risks.

*

Every time Satoshi fought back Krad, Gou looked a bit more ragged along her edges. Her scales had a golden fuzzed edge to them, her eyes as weary and resigned as his own. There were studies about this, whole tomes left in his family library about Krad’s effect on his tamer. When your art was granted life by Dust and you were possessed by a being that by all accounts was _made_ of Dust, it wasn’t strange to realize it wrought havoc on your daemon. There wasn’t an indication of how Dark’s tamers escaped the nastier side effects of body sharing. In Satoshi’s experience so far, he’d yet to feel anything more painful than his daemon forcibly reforming into Krad’s wings or back again.

“You know what this means,” Gou said. She circled his wrist, around and around like a living green bracelet, unable to sit still even as he couldn’t bring himself to move. “There’s only so much time left for us before I’m Dust.”

“I know.” Her claws itched like pinpricks. When he had pushed Krad back earlier today, for a second she had been see through as Krad’s strength pulled her in all directions.

“Niwa isn’t going to give in. We might have to hurt—”

“I know,” Satoshi snapped. Gou stopped circling and lifted herself onto her back legs to better stare him down.

“I don’t want to hurt them.”

Satoshi didn’t bother responding to that. Gou might be more open about how they really felt, but that didn’t mean he had to do as his emotions wanted him to.

He dreaded when Krad would finally appear.

*

Satoshi screamed and the thin, high pitched voice of his daemon echoed after him until suddenly it wasn’t and a burst of gold marked Krad’s emergence.

When Daisuke woke, the first thing he noticed was a hole where Dark should be. It felt like he imagined losing Ayame would feel like and she huddled against him, both their senses reaching out for Dark. It had felt wrong the first time they changed, but this…this felt so much worse.

Then there was Krad and the mirror and Wiz—too much was happening and nothing made sense anymore. If he could just have _wings!_

He reached for them anyway, and it burned, ripping at him, ripping at Ayame. She thrashed her wings against his side in a bruising echo down their bond but they were in agreement. It hurt but _Dark was gone_ and they needed him back.

There was a sickening absence of feeling when Ayame scattered into his wings, not the complete feeling of being together with Dark, but a numbness of pain tipping off into something unquantifiable. Later he’d wonder if that was what dying felt like, but they had the mirror, had Wiz, and they had Dark to rescue. He could have a breakdown about this some other time.

*

“You’re not Daisuke,” Ayame said, accusing, as she perched on Dark’s shoulder. Daisuke’s body’s shoulder, but Daisuke wasn’t here even if his soul was.

“No shit,” Dark muttered. The link between him and Ayame existed the same as with Daisuke, and if something like this had happened to anyone else, it’d probably kill them. But Ayame simmered with anger and pain radiating through the bond in a muted, secondhand way. She wasn’t Dark’s just like Daiki’s Botan wasn’t his either.

“You can’t keep this,” Ayame insisted. Like he didn’t feel Daisuke’s lack the way she did. Hell, the pain of a stretched soul bond was nothing compared to one that felt like it was all but severed. “We rescued you, now you rescue him.”

“I will,” Dark said, not even bothering to pretend to complain. “No one steals what’s mine and gets away with it.”

Ayame pecked him hard. She wasn’t quick to give in like Daisuke. She’d been so timid, too, when Dark first appeared. Figured Daisuke would show what he was really like when everything went to hell. “Swallow your pride. You’ll get Daisuke because we can’t exist without him not because you’re pissed at someone pulling one over you.”

“I could exist,” Dark insisted. He could probably make Ayame his own if she let him, merging her Dust with his along the bond until Dark was as human as half an artwork’s soul could ever be. Just like Daisuke could have existed without him when Dark had been sealed in the mirror.

“That sort of existence wouldn’t be worth living.” She launched off his shoulder, flying further than she could have with Daisuke up into the sky. Dark only felt the slightest tug of the bond stretching. Would she be able to do this even once they got Daisuke back?

“Get back here,” Dark called after her. “We have to at least pretend to be Daisuke until we get him back.”

He thought she’d ignore him, but she circled back a few minutes later and landed on his shoulder again. She didn’t peck him when he reached up to brush fingers along his feathers either.

“I don’t hate you,” she said when they started moving again, “but you’re not him and I need him more than I need you.”

It was funny. At the end of the day it would be Dark who couldn’t exist without both of them. What a life they led.

*

Dark did not have a daemon, and contrary to what Riku thought, Risa and Ginko were well aware of that. In all honesty, it probably should have scared her away; real life didn’t work the way supernatural romance novels did, and not having a daemon was a pretty big sign that Dark wasn’t capable of feeling things the way she was. While there was a chance Dark was one of those rare few creatures that had their soul in another form, it was probably a lot more complicated than that and she wasn’t going to make assumptions about that sort of thing without any proof.

“He doesn’t even have anyone for you to introduce Ginko to!” Riku growled as Risa searched through her closet for something nice enough to wear on a date, but durable enough to survive any acrobatics getting into the heist might entail. “How the hell can you trust someone without knowing their soul? He might not even have a soul, and what then Risa?”

“He’s not a vampire,” Risa said. She held up a blue dress but Ginko shook his head. “It’s not like he’s going to steal my daemon.”

“You don’t know that!” Riku stood in the doorway with Katsura braced at her side like they were going to barricade them in. “Maybe that’s how he keeps living, like a parasite.”

“I think there’d be rumors about that sort of thing if Dark was taking girls’ daemons to extend his life.” She took a white skirt from Ginko’s beak. Too girly? Or just the right amount to make Dark look at her? Hmm, white wasn’t the best color if she had to climb a wall. “Although if he wanted, I’d share.”

“Risa!” Riku gasped.

Risa and Ginko turned as one, Ginko’s feathers fluffing up. “What?”

“You can’t just…just share your soul!”

“Well I’d hardly let anyone keep Ginko, but sharing wouldn’t hurt anything.”

“Ginko!” Katsura bleated, trying to appeal to Risa’s other half. “You two don’t even know him.”

Ginko’s wings fluttered in an approximation of a shrug. “We’d get to know him first. It’s not like I’d let just anyone share me.”

“Exactly.” Risa nodded. She settled on a gray-blue skirt and started digging for a shirt to match. “Quit looking so scandalized, it’s not like I’m picking out panties to lure him in with or something.”

“How is offering up your soul not worse than seducing him with panties?!” Riku shrieked.

Ginko and Risa shared a look. Riku overreacted to everything. It’s not like they’d actually do anything without making sure Dark was worth it. They weren’t stupid. Ah well, might as well rile her up more. “Speaking of panties, should I go with red silk or black lace?”

“ _RISA_!”

*

It was Ayame who noticed, cutting into Daisuke’s argument with Dark with a sharp, “Daisuke, look!” before fluttering out the window.

Daisuke vaulted after her before their bond could stretch too far, catching sight of Satoshi on the way down.

“Satoshi!” It looked like he’d fallen off a bench, glasses and Gou tossed a good two feet away from the impact. Ayame fluttered around Gou. Gou’s scales were dull and there was a haze of gold around her that made Daisuke feel sick.

“She’s cold,” Ayame said. Her beak tapped Gou’s shoulder without response.

“So is Satoshi…” Daisuke said. Was he breathing? He was alive because Gou was there but—!  “Don’t die Satoshi!”

 _‘Oi, get ahold of yourself!_ ’ Dark said. ‘ _For cripes sake…_ ’

“I’ll get Gou,” Ayame said. Gou’s small lizard form lifted easily in Ayame’s talons. She dropped her onto Satoshi’s chest, wings barely missing Satoshi’s body before she whirled to settle on Daisuke’s shoulder. “We should move them. They can’t stay out here, and Gou needs to be warmer than this; she’s a warm climate lizard.”

“Move them where? To the school? We can’t just leave them there.”

‘ _Yes we can. In fact, yes we should. I’m sure the Commander just…needs a bit of rest._ ’

“Shut up Dark,” Daisuke and Ayame said together. Dark huffed and settled further back in Daisuke’s mind to pout.

“Take him home?” Ayame suggested.

They didn’t know where Satoshi lived. And besides that… “Doesn’t he live alone?”

“Then take him to our home.”

His mom would never agree to let Satoshi set foot in the house. …On the other hand, maybe if Satoshi was still unconscious they could at least win sympathy points. They’d take Satoshi home without calling ahead. Easier to get her to agree than if they asked ahead of time.

“Fine.” Daisuke crouched over Satoshi. “Um. How are we going to make this work?” It would be easiest to carry Satoshi on his back. Except. Gou. Who was just sitting on Satoshi’s chest and not tucked in a pocket and easily touchable, droppable, or breakable.

“Well shoot,” Ayame said.

They managed eventually, Ayame delicately tugging Gou into Satoshi’s front pocket in an awkward maneuver that required Daisuke holding her above Satoshi’s chest to keep from committing a taboo, but Gou was safe and Satoshi was on Daisuke’s back and Ayame was on Daisuke’s head, so it all worked out. It was definitely worrying that Satoshi hadn’t woken up at any point in the mess of it, so off they went to Daisuke’s house and even Emiko couldn’t turn Satoshi away when she saw how pale he was.

Haru complained the whole time from her shoulder, his long tail feathers trailing after Emiko as she bustled around the house. Haru had always been more serious than Emiko though, more direct when she’d cover up her feelings or be dramatic.

Daisuke knew it was Haru they’d have to watch out for along with Grandpa’s Botan, because both daemons had always been more upfront about opinions and emotions than either of their other halves, and Daisuke wouldn’t put it past Haru to take a pot shot just because he felt it was the right thing to do. Neither he nor Ayame could read what their father thought. Kousuke didn’t have the instinctive dislike that Emiko or Daiki had, but his rabbit daemon Mikoto was a lot less inclined to give what he was thinking away than the rest of the family’s daemons.

They’d come around though. Daisuke knew they would, because one look at Gou’s Dust coated body and they’d end up caring.

*

Gou shed Dust these days; not a lot, but it didn’t take a sharp observer to notice the fine golden trail she left whenever she moved. Gou didn’t have much energy these days either. It didn’t take much effort to extrapolate from there.

“We don’t have much longer,” Gou said. She walked along Satoshi’s palm and between his thumb and fore finger as he turned his hand over. Her scales didn’t feel like much of anything at the moment like they were on the edge of existing.

“No,” Satoshi said. “We don’t.” They probably wouldn’t be so bad already if they weren’t so determined to fight Krad, but sitting back had never been an option for either of them. They didn’t want anyone to be hurt by their ancestors’ mistakes and were more than willing to take the brunt of the fallout if that kept others clear. He turned his hand over again as she kept circling around it. Restless. Knowing was one thing. Accepting it was another. “…if we worked with Niwa…”

“Niwa doesn’t understand anything,” Gou said. She darted up his sleeve toward his elbow and back down to his palm leaving golden trails that Satoshi could almost feel. “He doesn’t realize anything is wrong with himself let alone understand what’s wrong with us.”

Satoshi said nothing. If Niwa could hope for things to be better… If Niwa could see it… Maybe Satoshi could hold on to some sliver of hope.

“He doesn’t understand what Dark is or how both of our families have been dying out from Dark and Krad for generations. We’re both on borrowed time and it’s going to run out sooner than later.”

Satoshi didn’t know what it meant that Gou was even more cynical than he was. He let her run across his skin without protest.

“Ayame might know more,” Gou said eventually, coming to rest in the cup of his palm. “She was stuck with Dark for all the time Niwa was in the painting.”

“Would it make a difference if she did?”

“Probably not…”

He finally reached out to touch her, running a careful fingertip over her back. She was fragile, more fragile now than ever before. They both were like glass that could shatter at any moment. They’d been talking more lately, maybe because there was so little time left, or maybe because they were alone more than they had been in recent years, no reason to even pretend to try and have a place in society.

“It would be better if we went first,” Gou said after a long moment. “Niwa and Ayame might live longer that way and Krad couldn’t bother anyone at all.”

Satoshi hummed in agreement, but he couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if he did die. If Krad no longer had a tamer, if Dark no longer had another half, would that upset the balance? Well, if they died he supposed they wouldn’t ever know so there wasn’t much point worrying about it. It wasn’t like they could stop the inevitable. At the very least, the Niwa seemed invested in caring for Hikari artworks. That was more than the Hikari had done for the majority of their works. If both Satoshi and Niwa died, Niwa Emiko was still young enough that there was a chance of another child. Both their lines didn’t have to die out.

“I’m cold,” Gou said, breaking him from his thoughts. He gathered her close. She’d been cold a lot more lately. Slept more too. A side effect of falling apart at the seams. Satoshi set her in his chest pocket above his heart and she curled into his warmth.

Satoshi wanted to hope and place faith in Niwa. Wanting had never been the same as being able to do something.

*

“Risa!”

Satoshi didn’t think, didn’t have time to think as he and Gou were in agreement. No matter how hard Ginko flapped and flailed, he wasn’t going to slow her fall. Satoshi pulled at the place inside of him that Krad’s wings dwelled, for once reaching with concern and a desire to help rather than trying to squash that part of himself down into the recesses of his soul.

Gou shifted to Dust and the wings burst from his back without any pain at all.

His arms closed around Risa and Ginko’s wings beat hard to keep from colliding into him. Their wings brushed and Satoshi felt the tingle of Risa’s soul against his own. It was foreign and full of so many vibrant emotions that it was almost overwhelming, there and gone in the instant it took for their wings to separate. In his arms Risa gasped.

Gou was warm and steady in his mind and Krad didn’t have control over this moment at all. Was this what it felt like when Daisuke transformed? This warmth? For the first time in a long time, the ache between him and Gou was gone. Only peace.

Krad stirred in the back of his mind, but even that couldn’t ruin the feeling of the moment. They reached the ground and Satoshi let Risa go. Ginko landed alongside her. He hissed questions as Risa tried to get her thoughts together.

“Stay here,” Satoshi said. “You’ll be safe here until Dark comes to get you.” He didn’t wait to listen to more questions, Krad now almost as awake and annoyed as earlier; the easy feeling of Gou as his wings turned strained and they had already fought him back once today.

Satoshi willed Krad down and his finger stung. Ah, the ring… The wings melted back into Gou and the ring crumbled. There was still a curious lack of pain in his chest and Krad was quiet.

“I wish it could always be like that,” Gou said. She wasn’t shedding any more Dust than before; if anything her edges looked less ragged.

Satoshi touched her and his chest where it still felt unfamiliarly warm.

They would reflect on this later.

**Author's Note:**

> I know, not very comprehensive of anything. ^_^;;; I just got an itch to write a few ficlets with Daemons all of a sudden, and it had to be D.N.Angel at that. Likely won't write more, but if anyone wants to play with the concept/talk daemons, please do!!
> 
>  
> 
> So. A list for those curious:  
>  **Daisuke:** baya weaving bird (Ayame) - wanted a bird but a bird known to create to reflect Daisuke's creative side  
>  **Satoshi:** Miyako grass lizard (Gou) - an endangered species, needs warmer temperatures to flourish (vaguely reflecting Satoshi's physical frailty) and a lizard as they're not cuddly or seen as particularly friendly. Lizard, not bird, because he tried to reject a lot about his family  
>  **Risa** : swan (Ginko) - visually pretty, could see her liking the strangeness of having a bird daemon, but also because swans look pretty but can be really terrifying and tough. Swans don't mess around.  
>  **Riku** : serow goat (Katsura) - stubborn, likely to confront, and athletic, goat was what came to mind. Then came the image of Riku clambering around places with a goat perching in weird places alongside her with the eerie surefooted way goats have and it just fit  
>  **Emiko** : lyrebird (Haru) - mimic abilities plus flashy tail feathers ^_^ Felt like it would suit Emiko well  
>  **Kousuke** : rabbit (Mikoto) - calm and intellectual (as per chinese zodiac rabbit via wiki. I didn't look too hard since these were ficlets), unassuming at first sight, and the reproductive connotations of a rabbit ^_^; (because Emiko might see that as a sign of fertility when she was looking for a husband for all I know)  
>  **Daiki** : eurasian magpie (Botan) - intelligent and resourceful, lucky  
>  **Takeshi:** bonnet macaque (Yuzuki) - mischievous, intelligent, but also capable of helping Takeshi with his work, so an aspect of practicality to their settling. They probably stretched their bond just so Yuzuki can climb places Takeshi can't for better pictures.  
>  **Inspector Saehara** : Large mutt dog (unnamed) - You think police, you think dogs. This dog probably has the underbite of a bull dog, but the size of a saint bernard and is fluffy and grumpy and she makes grumbly noises to herself all the time. Despite all this, she's more bark than bite, just like the inspector  
>  **Rio Hiakri** : red crowned crane (unnamed)- something elegant, endangered species, bird (and ironic since the crane is a symbol of longevity)  
> And just for fun...  
> Satoshi's grandmom: Okinawan woodpecker (again because endangered! And woodpecker because she'd be chasing after Daiki at this time. Tenacious, picky bird for an undoubtedly nitpicky lady)  
> Keiji Saga: coydog (half coyote, half dog) You think he's just a cute puppy dog, but he notices more than he lets on. Coyote bit because of how he has a trickster feel going to him. you don't know what his exact motive is  
> Hiwatari Kei: fennec fox (cute, seemingly non threatening. but the connotations of a fox as sly and trickster/manipulative/occasionally dangerous in mythology. Another person whose motives are hard to pin down)


End file.
